Psychology Approaches

Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychology lab

• Opened in Leipzig,Germany in 1879
• The aim was to describe the nature of human consciousness (the mind) in a carefully controlled and scientific environment - a lab

Wundt pioneered the method of introspection

• Introspection was the first systematic experimental attempt to study the mind by breaking up conscious awareness into basic structures of thoughts,images and sensations
• Isolating the structure into basic consciousness in this way is called structuralism

• The same standardised instructions were given to all participants
• Procedures could be repeated (replicated)

Significance of Wundts work

• His work was significant as it marked the separation of modern scientific psychology from its broader philosophical roots

Focus on OBSERVABLE behaviour only

• Behaviour that can be observed and measured
• Not concerned with mental processes of the mind
• Introspection was rejected by behaviourists as its concepts were vague and difficult to measure

Controlled lab studies

• Behaviourists tried to maintain more control and objectivity within their research and relied on lab studies to achieve this 

Use of non human animals

• Processes of learning are the same for all species
• Animals replace humans as experimental subjects

Conditioning means Learning

Pavlov's research - conditioning dogs to salivate when a bell rings

Before conditioning

UCS (Food) --> UCR (Salivation)

NS (Bell) --> no response

During conditioning

NS + UCS (Food and Bell occur at the same time)

After conditioning

CR (Bell) --> CR (Salivation)

Pavlov showed how a neutral stimulus can come to elicit (evoke) a new learning response through association

Operant = learning is an active process whereby humans and animals operate on their environment. Behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences

SKINNER'S RESEARCH

•  Rats and pigeons, in specially designed cages (Skinner boxes)
• When a rat activated a lever (or pigeon pecked a disc) it was rewarded with a food pellet
• A desirable consquence led to a behaviour being repeated
• If pressing a lever meant an animal avoided an electric shock, the behaviour would also be repeated

Three types of consequences

Positive reinforcement - receiving a reward when behaviour is performed

Negative reinforcement - when an animal or human produces behaviour that avoids something unpleasant

Punishment - an unpleasant and negative reinforcement increase the likelihood that behaviour will be repeated, punishment decreases it

A strength of behaviourism is that it gave psychology scientific credibility

• The approach focused on the careful measurement of observable behaviour within controlled lab settings
• Behaviourists emphasised the importance of scientific processes such as objectivity and replication
• This brought the language and methods of the natural sciences into psychology, giving the subject greater credibility and status

The laws of learning developed by behaviourists have real-life application

• The principles of conditioning have been applied to a broad range of real-world behaviours and problems
• Taken economy systems reward appropriate behaviour with tokens for privilieges
• Successfully used in prisons 
• Good treatment for people who lack insight into their condition

A limitation is behaviourism is a form of environment determinism

• The approach sees all behaviour as determined by past experiences that have been conditions and ignores any influence that free will may have on behaviour
• Skinner suggests free will was an illusion

Learning that occurs indirectly - Albert Bandura agreed with the behavourists approach that learning occurs through experience. However he also proposed that learning takes place in a social context through observation and imitation of others behaviour

Learning is related to consequences of behaviour - Vicarious reinforcement

• Children (and adults) learn through other peoples behaviour and take note of its consequences
• Behaviour that is seen to rewarded (reinforced) is much more likely to be copied than behaviour that is punished
• Banduras called this vicarious learning 

4 MEDIATIONAL PROCESSES IN LEARNING 

• Attention - whether behaviour is noticed
• Retention - whether behaviour is remembered 
• Motor reproduction - being able to do it 
• Motivation - the will to perform the behaviour 

The first two relate to learning of behaviour

The last two to the performance of behaviour

Banduras Research 1 

Children watched either:

• An adult behaving aggressively towards a Bodo doll
• An adult behaving non-aggressively towards a Bodo doll

When given their own doll to play with, the children who had seen aggression were much more aggressive towards the doll

Banduras Research 2:

Children saw adult who was:

• Rewarded
• Punished
• There was no consequence

When given their own doll, the children who saw the agression rewarded were much more aggressive themselves

The Bodo doll studies suggest that children are likely to imitate (model) acts of violence if they observe these in an adult role model

It is also the case that modelling aggressive behaviour is more likely if such behaviour is seen to be rewarded (Vicarious reinforcement)

Children are more likely to imitate the behaviour of people with whom they identify. Such as role models- high status and attractive 

A strength is SLT emphasises the importance of cognitive factors in learning

• Neither classical conditioning or operant conditioning can offer a comprehensive account of human learning on their own because cognitive factors are omitted
• Provides a more complete explanation by recognising the role of mediational processes

A limitation is SLT relies too heavily on evidence from controlled lab studies 

• Many of Banduras ideas were developed through observations of childrens behaviour in lab settings and this raises the problem of demand characteristics
• The main purpose of the Bodo doll is to hit it
• So the children in those studies may have been behaving as they thought was expected 
• May tell us little about how children learn in everyday life

A limitation is SLT underestimates the influence of biological factors

• A consistant finding in the Bobo doll experiments was that boys showed more aggression than girls regardless of specific of the experimental condition
• This may be explained in differences in levels of testosterone
• This means that Bandura may have underplayed the important influence of biological factors on social learning theory

A strength is SLT can account for cultural differences in behaviour

• Social learning principles can account for how children learn from other people around them, as well as through media
• Explains how children come to understand their gender role by imitating role models (Cultural norms)

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF MENTAL PROCESSES

• In direct contrast to the behaviourist approach, the cognitive approach argues that mental processes should be studied (E.g studying perception and memory)

THE ROLE OF INFERENCE IN THE STUDY OF MENTAL PROCESSES

• Mental processes are 'private' and cannot be observed, so cognitive psychologists study them indirectly by making inferences (assumptions) about what is going on inside peoples heads on the basis of their behaviour

THE USE OF COMPUTER MODELS WHEN DESCRIBING AND EXPLAINING MENTAL PROCESSES

• The information processing approach suggests that information flows through a sequence of stages that include input, storage and retrieval, as in the multi- store model

WHEN DESCRIBING AND EXPLAINING MENTAL PROCESSES

• The 'computer analogy' suggests similarities in how computer and human minds process information
• For instance, the use of a central processor (the brain) changing information into a useable code and the use of 'stores' to hold information

• Schema packages of information developed through experience
• They act as 'mental framework' for the interpretation of incoming information recieved by the cognitive system
• Babies are born with simple motor schema for innate behaviours such as sucking and grasping
• As we get older, our schema became more detailed and sophisticated

• Cognitive neuroscience is the science study of the influence of the brain structures (neuro) on mental processes (cognition)
• With advances in brain scanning technology in the last twenty years,scientists have been able to describe the neurological basis of mental processing 
• This includes research in memory that has linked episodic and semantic memories to opposite sides of the prefrontal cortex in the brain
• Scanning techniques have also proved useful in establishing the neurological basis of some disorders 

A strength is that the cognitive approach uses scientific and objective methods

• Cognitive psychologists have always employed controlled and rigorous methods of study
• E.g lab studies, in order to infer cognitive processes at work
• This has enabled the two fields of biology and cognitive psychology to come together
• This means that the study of the mind has established a credible, scientific basis

A limitation is that the approach is based on machine reductionism

• Although there are simlarities between the operations of the human mind and a computer (inputs and outputs, central processor, storage systems) the computer has been criticised
• Not all factors such as emotion and motivation are included in the computer analogy
• Therefore the cognitive approach oversimplifies human cognitve processing and ignores important aspects that influence performance

EVERYTHING PSYCHOLOGICAL IS AT FIRST BIOLOGICAL

• If we want to fully understand human behaviour we must look to biological structures and processes within the body, such as genes, neurochemistry and the nervous system

BEHAVIOUR HAS A GENETIC AND NEUROCHEMICAL BASIS

• Behaviour are inherited in the same way as physical characteristics such as height or eye colour
• (5HT1-D beta gene implicated in OCD)
• Neurochemistry also explains behaviour, for example low levels of serotonin in OCD

THE MIND AND BODY ARE ONE AND THE SAME

• From biological perspective, the mind lives in the brain 
• Meaning that all thoughts, feelings and behaviour ultimately have a physcial basis
• This is in contrast to the cognitive approach which sees the mind separate from the brain

TWIN STUDIES ARE USED TO INVESTIGATE THE GENETIC BASIS OF BEHAVIOUR

• Concordance rates between twins are calculated- the extent to which twins share the same characteristic
• Higher concordance rates among identical twins than non-identical twins is evidence of a genetic basis

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GENOTYPE AND PHENOTYPE

• A persons genotype is their actual gentic makeup
• Phenotype is the way that genes are expressed through physical, behavioural and psychological characteristics
• The expression of genotype is influenced by the environment factors
• This suggests that much of human behaviour depends on the interaction of nature and nurture

Is used to by the biological approach to explain many aspects of behaviour

• Charles Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection
• Any genetically determined behaviour that enhances survival and reproduction will be passed on to future generations 
• Such genes are described as adaptive and give the possesor and their offspring advantages
• For instance, attachment behaviour in newborns promote survival and are therefore adaptive and naturally selected

A strength of the approach is its use of scientific methods of investigation

• In order to investigate the genetic and biological approach basis of behaviour, the biological approach makers use of a range of precise and highly scientific methods
• These conclude scanning techniques (FMRIs) and drug trials
• It is possibly to accurately measure biological and neutral processes in ways that are not open to bias
• This means that the biological approach is based on reliable data

THE BIOLOGICAL APPROACH HAS REAL-LIFE APPLICATION

• Increased understanding of biochemical processes in the brain has led to the development of psychoactive drugs that treat serious mental disorders (e.g depression)
• Sufferers are able to live to a relatively normal life, rather than in the hospital

THE KEY FEATURES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

The nervous system is a specialised network of cells and our primary communication system. It has two main functions:

• To collect, process and respond to information in the environment
• To co-ordinate the working different organs and cells in the body

It is divided into the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system

(CNS)

• The CNS is made up of the brain and the spinal cord
• The brain is the centre of all conscious awareness
• The outer layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex, is highly developed in humans and is what distinguishes our higher mental functions from those of animals
• The spinal cord is an extension of the brain and is responsible for reflex of animals
• It passes messages to and from the brain and connects nerves to the PNS

• The PNS transmit messages, via millions of neurons, to and from the nervous system
• The PNS is further sub-divided into the automic nervous system and the somatic nervous system
• The ANS governs vital functions in the body such as breathing, heart rate, digestion, sexual arousal and stress reponses
• The SNS controls muscles movement and recieves information from sensory reception

KEY FEATURES

• The endocrine system works alongside the nervous system to control via functions in the body through the action of hormones

GLANDS

• Glands are organs in the body that produce hormones
• The major endocrine gland is the pituitary gland - located in the brain
• It is called the 'master gland' because it controls the release of hormones from all the other endocrine glands in the body

HORMONES

• Hormones are secreted in the bloodstream and affect any cell in the body that has a receptor for that particular hormone
• E.g - Thyroxine produced by the thyroid gland affects cells in the heart and also cells throughout the body which increase metabolic rates. This in turn affects growth rates

FLIGHT OR FLIGHT RESPONSE

• When a stressor is percieved, the hypothalamus triggers activity in the sympathetic branch of the ANS
• The ANS changes from its normal resting state (The parasympathetic state) to the physiogically aroused state
• The stress hormone adrenaline is released from the adrenal medulla into the bloodstream
• Adrenaline triggers physiological changes in target organs in the body and causes increased heart rate, dilation of the pupils, decreased production of saliva < this is called the flight or flight response

Once the threat has passed, the parasympathetic nervous system returns the body to its resting state

This acts as a brake and reduces the activities by the actions of the body that were increased by the actions of the sympathetic branch (Rest and digest)

SYMPATHETIC STATE

• Increase heart rate 
• Increase breathing rate
• Dilates pupils 
• Inhibits digestion 
• Inhibits saliva production 
• Contracts rectum

PARASYMPATHETIC STATE

• Decreases heart rate 
• Decreases breathing rate
• Constricts pupils
• Stimulates digestion 
• Stimulates saliva production
• Relaxes rectum

TYPES AND FUNCTION OF NEURONS 

There are 100 billion nerve cells (neurons) in the human nervous system, 80% of which are located in the brain

By transmitting signals electrically and chemically, these provide the nervous system with its primary means of communitcation

3 TYPES OF NEURONS

• Motor neurons connect the CNS to effectors such as muscles and glands. They have short dentrites and long axons
• Sensory neurons carry messages from the PNS to the CNS. They have long dendrites and short axons
• Relay neurons connect sensory neurons to motor or other relay neurons. They have short dendrites and short axons

Neurons vary in size but all share the same basic structure

• CELL BODY - includes a nucleus which contains the genetic material of the cell
• DENDRITES - Branch like structures that protrude from the cell body. These carry nerve impulses from neighbouring neurons towards the cell body
• AXON - carries the electrical impulse away from the cell body down the length of the neuron
• - It is covered in a fatty layer of myelin sheath that protects the axon
• - Gaps in the axon called nodes of Ranvier speed up the transmissions of the impulse 
• TERMINAL BUTTONS - at the end of the axon communicate with the next neuron in the chain across a gap called the synapse

When a neuron is in a resting state the inside of the cell is negatively charged compared to the outside

When a neuron is activated, the inside of the cell becomes positively charged for a split second causing an action potencial to occur

This creates an electrical impulse that travels down the axon towards the end of the neuron

A SYNAPSE

• Each neuron is separated from the next by a tiny gap called the synapse

CHEMICAL TRANSMISSIONS - The events that occur at the synpase

• Signals within neurons are transmitted electrically; however, signals between neurons are transmitted chemically across the synapse
• When the electrical impulse reaches the end of the neuron (The presynaptic terminal) 
• It triggers the release of neurotransmitter from tiny sacs called synpatic veiscles
• Once the neurotransmitter crosses the gap, it is taken up by the postsynpatic receptor site on the next neuron
• The chemical message is converted back into an electrical impulse and the process of electric transmission begins

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that diffuse across the synpase to the next neuron in the chain

Several dozen neurotransmitters have been identified 

Each has its own specific molecular structure that fits perfectly into a post-synpatic receptor site, like a lock and key

Each has specific functions:

• ACETYLCHOLINE found where motor neuron meets a muscle, causing muscles to contract
• SEROTONIN affects mood and social behaviour (among other things) which is why it has been implicated as a cause of depression

Neurotransmitter generally have either an excitatory or inhibitory effect on the neighbouring neuron

• ADRENALINE- generally excitatory or inhibitory, increasing the positive charge of the postsynaptic neuron, making it more likely the neuron will fire
• SEROTONIN - generally inhibitory,increasing the negative charge of the postsynpatic neuron, making it less likely the neuron will fire
• DOPAMINE - is an unusual neurotransmitter as it is equally likely to have excitatory or inhibitory effects on the next neuron in the chain